Let me start by saying that I, like every self-respecting political junkie, have watched and adored The West Wing — all seven seasons, multiple times.
So before you roll your eyes and think here we go again, another musings-on-Sorkin piece, let me declare it plainly: the show remains as close as modern television gets to pure, unadulterated political catnip
It’s become a universal language, so much so that every English-speaking politician from Tony Blair and David Cameron to Canada’s Justin Trudeau has insisted, at some point, on comparing themselves to President Josiah Bartlet and his merry band of idealistic staffers.
The starry-eyed, walk-and-talk-laden world that Aaron Sorkin conjured up has seduced even the loftiest of policy heavies. Tony Blair’s love for it was famously well-documented: apparently No.10 once invited John Spencer – the late, great Leo McGarry – to break bread with Blair’s real-life chief of staff, Aaron Sorkin. One wonders if they also tried to rope in Martin Sheen to give them one of those soaring, paternal pep talks that always ended with him sauntering down the corridor while rousing orchestral chords hammered home the point.
And let’s not forget Bill Clinton’s adviser, Gene Spurling, who was not only a leading policy mind but served as an expert adviser on the show. Blair’s office invited him to dinner too, bridging that gap between fiction and reality so seamlessly that one might have expected C.J. Cregg to walk in and brief them on the daily crisis. The West Wing was the political soap du jour. It gave politicos the same rush a teenage pop fan might get from meeting the entire lineup of their favourite band backstage. For a certain generation, it was cultural currency — and, crucially, it made politics look downright cool, something that was in desperately short supply.
Fast-forward to 2017 (or indeed 2025, if we’re looking back and counting the years of regret). Enter Donald Trump as President. The question arises: how far removed is he from the luminous Sorkin universe? Trump is the antithesis of Bartlet, right? The brash spectacle, the Twitter rants, the preference for punchy, provocative soundbites over nuanced, reasoned debate — all of it seems anathema to the measured, idealistic, legislative artistry that Sorkin’s scripts so worshipfully championed. President Bartlet was a Notre Dame economics professor with a Nobel Prize, a man who’d pour over reams of data before making the slightest peep. Trump? Definitely not scribbling cross-charts of comparative advantage in the Oval Office.
And yet, watch carefully, and you’ll find moments of The West Wing in Trump’s presidency, whether we like it or not. The genius of Sorkin’s masterpiece lay in its ability to turn the daily drudgery of politics into compelling drama — the big set-piece speeches, the grand pronouncements, the staff’s unwavering devotion to their man. Trump’s White House might not do subtle, but it certainly goes big. And it’s that flair for drama, that showmanship, which paradoxically echoes the power The West Wing had over its audience. In a strange way, Trump turned the real West Wing into something more akin to a reality show, with cliffhangers every week and the press corps eternally breathless. We might not like it, but it’s got its own narrative arcs that might make Sorkin, in some bizarre alternate universe, nod in recognition.
Meanwhile, across the pond, we have to wonder if Keir Starmer’s people are busy working out which streaming platform the show is still on in the UK or hitting up eBay for the DVD’s and a Player to play them on for some marathon session ahead of strategy meetings. You can almost imagine a staffer breathlessly proclaiming: “We need to find our ‘Let Bartlet be Bartlet’ moment!” Indeed, according to The Times, the phrase “Let Starmer be Starmer” has just strolled into mainstream commentary. Let’s not forget it was “Let Bartlet be Bartlet” that became a rallying cry in the show — a reminder for our dear President Jed Bartlet to be his own best self. Now we’re hearing it of Starmer, and perhaps that’s the closest one gets to a truly British version of Sorkin’s flair. The noble counsel, the rousing phrase, the vow not to compromise. Sean Kemp quipped on Twitter this morning that this fresh bit of Starmer-lore completes “whatever the fourth goal of a hat trick is called.” Precisely.
But, aside from comedic parallels, one of the most intriguing endorsements of The West Wing came from Justin Trudeau who admitted on The West Wing Weekly podcast that he found the show entirely relatable, right down to the everyday grind of the job and the ephemeral “moments of moral clarity.” He even boasted that he used a 2002 Bartlet debate scene — you know, the one where the President annihilates his opponent’s shallow “10-word” answers — as prep for his own contests. And, fair play to him, it worked. Trudeau pranced into office with youthful swagger and rhetorical vision. Yet, as events have shown, the real political stage can’t be so finely scripted, nor can all the future’s curveballs be condensed into a snappy Sorkin speech.
The allure of that Sorkin speech, though, is something no political obsessive can quite resist. Take a quick spin through the best five minutes of any political programme, the opening scene of Sorkin’s The Newsroom (there’s a conveniently viral clip on YouTube, if you’ve got five minutes). There’s Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy, cornered into an uncomfortably direct answer, launching into a blistering monologue about why America isn’t the greatest country in the world. It’s raw, it’s electric, it’s borderline heretical, and it’s how a great many political onlookers secretly long for politicians to speak: with honesty untainted by spin, delivering zingers that’d knock James Carville’s socks off. But in real life, that brand of oratory is as rare as hen’s teeth — especially now that spin itself has become a zero-sum game, the lifeblood of the permanent campaign. The only British politician who does come close is Nigel Farage, which might explain why he is now gaining in polls for his common-people direct style.
So here we are, decades into the mania for Sorkin’s seminal drama, and it remains the shining, unattainable standard for political conduct. It’s still quoted in press briefings, dinner parties, and, yes, Prime Minister’s Questions. The notion that every new prime minister (or indeed president) might be the next Jed Bartlet has proven more ephemeral than the soggy phrase “the new normal.” Yet, ironically, that might be part of The West Wing’s enduring genius: it presented not the real political sphere but the ideal. It’s an allegory for how we wish politics could be — high-minded, passionate, and infused with moral clarity — and not how it usually is, full of cheap jibes and shady negotiations behind closed doors.
So how far from The West Wing is Donald Trump? It’s tempting to say a million miles, that Sorkin’s measured erudition and Trump’s brash staccato simply don’t speak the same language. But I’m not entirely sure. They share a sense of showmanship, albeit on opposite ends of the rhetorical scale. Both delighted their respective audiences; Bartlet with refined moral passion, Trump with punchy populist jabs. If The West Wing taught us anything, it’s that political theatre resonates deeply. We want a big, emotional story, a sense of the moral arc bending the right way (or at least some way). Trump’s new presidency will be show of a very different sort, but a show it will certainly be. And perhaps that’s the real lesson: The West Wing showed how deeply politics and performance intersect. Whether you prefer the quicksilver repartee of Bartlet’s White House or the combative streetfighter style of Trump’s, both are indelibly etched into modern political culture.
In the end, I suspect all these references to The West Wing in politics — from Blair’s dinner guests to Starmer’s rhetorical pep talk, from Trudeau’s binge-watching will keep surfacing for years to come. As long as there are leaders who want to conjure that golden combination of intellect, charm, and unstoppable moral gravitas, Sorkin’s script will remain the Platonic ideal. And we’ll keep measuring real politicians by how far they fall short. Or, in Trump’s case, by how far he soared off in a completely different direction. One thing’s for sure: President Bartlet is still in that mythical corridor, walking and talking, as relevant as ever. And long may he remain so.
Read more:
Bartlet vs. Trump: the surprising West Wing secrets that still shape global politics